kanchan 01/04/06

Last night I was out late, I went out to say goodbye to Tarryn one of the girls from my TEFL course. I went to her place and several other guys from the TEFL course showed up, we ended up in some english pub in Sukumvit, where one of the teachers from our course appeared an hour or so later. I left about 11:30 so I could catch the metro to Hua Lumphong and then I walked home through China town, I didn't realise how many people live on the streets in Bangkok, lots and lots of people sleep literally on the streets, under a blanket, with odd assortments of possessions set up around them to mark their space and make it homey. One person had a cd disk set up silver side out on top of her little pile of possessions, at the time I just thought it was odd, unusual but now I think it was her circular evil eye mirror set up to watch over her as she slept.

I made it to Khao san rd by about 1am, I had never seen the place at that time and wanted to see just how awful it can be, I was surprised it was not as awful as it could have been. As I walked down the street This guy yelled out hello and I realised it was a guy who had lived on Phangan when I was there for a year in 1997, funnily enough he didn't recognise me (we all look the same us Foreign girls). He makes a habit of clumsily trying to chat up chicks, I guess it must work often enough for him to keep at it, though how it ever works I can't understand, he is an egotist who relies entirely on meaningless flattery. (Mind you I reckon that the fact he has moved his opperation to the middle of the night on a strip where there is lots of really drunk chicks speaks volumes).

Then as I was almost home Taz, one of the other girls from the course came leaping out of a bar and dragged me in for a drink, it was good to see her again, and her boyfriend insisted on feeding me deep fried crickets, they stick in your throat a bit but otherwise very much like any other snack food, surprisingly tasteless except for the added soy. So it's a small city after all, this Bangkok place, while in the bar I bought a cool hand puppet with a squeaker and poke out tongue, it will be good for the class I tell myself, it's just an excuse I wanted it, he's so cool, I shall call him Quackers.

Arrived in Kanchan this morning, Charlie has gone to Egypt, Grumpy moves out to the country on Monday, and Earl has already moved out, people are swimming in the river again, there has been a lot of rain recently so it's had a chance to get clean, the waterfalls will be beautiful, I should go up in the next couple of days. It's nice to be out of Bkk for a few days but I suppose I should start work soon.